The seeds for a rebirth of AIDS activism may have been sown during a meeting of about 125 activists from around the country Jan. 4-5 in Washington, D.C.

What was originally billed as a planning session for a May march on Washington, has morphed into something that is broader and more expansive.

“The larger goal is to revitalize and reenergize the AIDS activist movement across the country,” said Michael Kink, with Housing Works in New York, one of the principle organizers of the meeting.

AIDS activism arose in the depths of the crisis in the mid-1980s and helped to push numerous changes such as shortening the drug approval process at the FDA; making the research process more open and accountable to community concerns; and dramatically increasing funding for AIDS services.

The introduction of new anti-HIV drugs, beginning with protease inhibitors in the mid-1990s, had a miraculous medical impact on the disease and stimulated a massive increase in federal funding to assure access to the drugs.

But those very successes also allowed a sense of domestic complacency to develop, while the continued horrors of AIDS in the developing world drew attention overseas.

Domestically the number of Americans living with HIV continues to grow, as do their needs for expensive services. It is a testimony to the very success of those programs that more Americans living with HIV are alive, healthy and productive than at any time in the past. But private donations to AIDS groups have declined and government funding has not kept pace with the steadily increasing caseload.

AIDS advocates see 2005 as a crucial year because of reauthorization of the Ryan White CARE Act that funds a large portion of AIDS services, and an escalating crisis with under-funding of the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP).

There also is a serious threat to Medicaid, which provides another large portion of AIDS care nationally. Possible Social Security and welfare reform also could have an impact.

“I think the fact that the Republicans won again in November crystallized the fact that we’ve got to do something new and different,” said longtime Los Angles AIDS activist Walt Senterfit.

“The political environment has changed in Washington,” explained Paul Feldman. Tax cuts and demands for the war in Iraq have made it increasingly difficult to get increased funding for any social program. “We have to demand of our friends that they make AIDS a priority,” he said.

Feldman is with the National Association of People With AIDS (NAPWA), another principle organizer of the meeting. He called it “historic… an amazing diverse group of people from all over the country.” It was a sentiment expressed by most of those who attended.

Colm Hegarty is with the Tenderloin AIDS Resource Center, a smaller AIDS services organization (ASO) in San Francisco. The epicenter of new infections in that city is among drug users. He came to the Washington meeting because “we felt that we needed to be at the table and those perspectives needed to be represented.”

Hegarty heard “a lot of heated discussion,” particularly around “reframing the arguments” in trying to seize the moral high ground in public discussions. He argues, AIDS “is a moral issue as well as a medical issue.” We have to shift pubic discourse from the “immorality” of drug use and out of wedlock sex to the morality of caring for people.

That is one of the reasons why AIDSWatch is considering adding a faith-based session as part of its May gathering for lobbying on AIDS.

Senterfit spoke with many people prior to coming to the meeting and found, “Not a lot of people were excited about yet another march on Washington where a whole lot of money and energy is dedicated to something that is a big poof on one day, and everything rides on whether or not it gets any press. Often that is not proportionate to the effort.”

Kink acknowledged some contentious discussions at the meeting but said, “The conflict was people who really wanted to work with one another and get their issues heard.” They were looking for ways to make that happen.

To Senterfit, “The intent is to not only reinvigorate activism at the grassroots but to spread the movement into places across the country that are politically as well as epidemiologically important – those red states,” and to revitalize local media coverage of HIV/AIDS, he said.

Through an extended discussion process the group came to understand that while closer East Coast communities might be able to master the logistics of a May event in Washington, it would be more difficult for more distant locations. Hegarty added, “Building coalitions with national organizations such as the AARP takes time.”

What emerged is “an increased mobilization for AIDSWatch, May 2-4,” Feldman said. They hope to increase participation to 2,000, add another day to the program and refocus training away from the process of how to lobby, to a deeper understanding of the issues themselves.

They also hope to add skill-building sessions around community organizing, in part to mobilize for the larger caravan or march that is to culminate in Washington, D.C., over the Columbus Day weekend, Oct. 8-12.

Feldman believes the idea of caravans from various parts of the country converging on the capitol over that weekend will succeed in creating greater public awareness of domestic AIDS needs. Crucial to this success is properly training the participants to better communicate their stories to reporters; “Why in the midst of being sick, of being poor, they are using their energy to get themselves to D.C.” He said, “I think that is really, really powerful.”

The participants acknowledged a variety of perspectives and tactics with the AIDS community. And even while airing their grievances, they chose to focus on what unites rather than what divides them.

As Senterfit said, “Most people respect the fact that we need different types of skills – we need people who are skillful inside players – but I think that most of us also realize we cannot leave it to that sector of the movement if we are going to have any hope of expanding the pie [of funding] and expanding the constituency of advocates and activists.”